1. Field of the Invention
This present invention relates to a method, system and computer program product for enabling the concurrent editing of a document containing a plurality of independent or loosely connected segments by multiple authors.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The editing of complex documents such as reference works, committee reports, conference proceedings etc. requires careful handling since such documents are usually large and require attention to details. The human mind when faced with the task of creating such documents, automatically attempts to segment the document into parts that are either independent of or loosely connected to each other. The editing of each part is then carried out with the help of a document editing system.
The segmentation of large complex documents as defined above, suggests the assignment of multiple authors to the task of editing the document with each author being given the responsibility for a subset of segments. Such an approach is a natural method of improving the efficiency of the editing activity. However, such an arrangement requires a document editing system that supports the concurrent editing of the document by multiple authors without interfering with each other's work.
The document editing system facilitates the efficient creation and modification of the document segments. U.S. Pat. No. 5,892,513 describes a document editing system capable of maintaining a large number of complex versioned documents in an efficient manner. However, this patent does not adequately meet the requirements of a document editing system catering to multiple authors working concurrently on a document with non-overlapping segments. Several important features such as an email service to facilitate communication between the authors, provision for managerial and administrative authority over the complete document by a single super author with the authority to assign segment authors and their access rights, means for temporarily suspending the work done on a segment, encryption, decryption and password means are not provided. Hence this invention falls short of fulfilling the needs of a document editing system of the type covered by this invention.